This one-hour exercise could save you thousands of dollars in 2025

There’s a reason the newest edition of Spotify Wrapped is always a highly anticipated event–even when it reminds you that Bluey was your most listened to artist in 2024. We love to reflect on who we’ve been over the past year and use that information to plan the upcoming year. (First order of business for 2025: Get the kids a separate music account.) Though we happily look through the year-in-review lists about our entertainment consumption, few of us take the time to look back at our financial choices. But a quick spending inventory of 2024 can be one of the best ways to set yourself up for a financially successful 2025–and it doesn’t have to be a chore.

Here’s what you can do in about an hour to save thousands of bucks in 2025.

Plug your 2024 budget leaks

You may not realize that money has been trickling out of your hands all year, which can add up to a significant amount of wasted dough. To make sure you only pay for things you want in 2025, take a few minutes to curate your subscriptions and your inbox.

Cancel unused subscriptions

The modern world allows us to subscribe to everything from meal planning kits to streaming services to news sites—but do you know all of the subscriptions you are paying for?

These easily-overlooked charges, known as gray charges, are usually for services you have completely forgotten you signed up for. In many cases, consumers sign up for a free trial and forget to cancel before the trial period ends. These charges are perfectly legal—and perfectly infuriating.

Conducting a spending inventory by going through your credit card and banking statements to identify and cancel gray charges is a worthwhile use of an afternoon. But you can also use one of the many apps that will do it for you and save yourself some time.

Get advertisements out of your email

There’s a reason online retailers give you a discount in exchange for your email address: a constant stream of cool new products in your inbox will earn them far more than the discount is worth. You may think you’re making a money savvy choice by signing up for the newsletter to get the discount, but you’re really agreeing to daily temptation.

Say no to the advertising in your mail. As part of your spending inventory, take ten minutes to unsubscribe from all the retailer emails you receive and give yourself (and your email) a clean slate for the new year.

While you’re at it, commit to unsubscribing from retail newsletters in the future the minute you’ve claimed your 10% discount. You don’t need their clutter.

Review your 2024 spending

It used to be that only the meticulously organized had any hope of figuring out where their money went over the course of a year. Unless you kept a color-coded spreadsheet to track every penny you spent, there was no way of knowing your spending habits.

Thankfully, we have robots to keep track of this stuff for us now! No matter who you bank with, you can rest assured that your financial institution has an online tool designed to help you see your spending habits and complete your spending inventory.

Take a few minutes to look up your 2024 spending on your bank and credit card websites. You can usually find this feature under Tools and it may be called something like Spending Summary, Spend Analysis, or Spending Report.

Typically, these spending summary tools will break down your spending by category, telling you how much you have spent on each one by the dollar amount and percentage of your total spending.

Once you get over the sticker shock (yes, you really did spend that much on DoorDash), you can start using this information to help you plan ahead for 2025.

Conduct a spending post-mortem

Starting with your largest spending category and working your way down, ask yourself the following questions:

Why did I spend money in this category this year?

Quickly list the circumstances behind the spending in this category. For example, maybe you attended seven weddings this year, which is why your travel expenses were so high. Or maybe you had a new job that required an updated wardrobe, leading to higher than usual spending on clothes.

The important thing is to think through what you know or remember about your spending habits in each category—and it’s okay if you don’t know.

How can I budget for this category in 2025?

Divide the total amount you spent on the category by 12 to determine your average monthly spending. Is that monthly average an amount you can easily fit into your budget?

For example, perhaps you spent $3,000 to go on vacation in 2024. Money felt tight at the time and you definitely spent more than you realized for the trip. But $250 per month–or $125 per paycheck–seems much more manageable.

If this describes your highest spending category, consider starting a savings account for that kind of spending. You can set up an automatic transfer of the monthly average spending into the savings account and have money already set aside for next year’s spending.

How can I cut my spending on this category in 2025?

If you simply spent too much on a category in 2024, that knowledge can help motivate you to reduce your purchases in that category. But you can also adopt other savings hacks, such as:

• Remove your payment information from your favorite shopping sites. Just having to get up to find your credit card can be enough to keep you from making an unplanned purchase. Check which sites you spent the most money on and delete your credit card information.
• Make yourself wait 24 hours before making any purchases. This may only be necessary in your highest spending categories if that’s where you’re most likely to make impulse purchases.
• Refrain from any purchases in your highest spending category for a month. This can be especially helpful for anyone who was horrified to see how much they have spent on dining out. Forcing yourself to avoid spending money in restaurants and coffee shops for an entire month can help you recalibrate your habits.

Make 2025 your money year

Taking one hour to complete a spending inventory may not be nearly as riveting as learning that you listened to a total of 137 hours of Baby Shark in 2024, but it will position you to create a wealthier 2025.

Start by cancelling your unused subscriptions and unsubscribing from every retail newsletter you receive. That will help prevent your 2024 budget leaks from following you into the new year.

From there, use your bank’s online tools to create a spending summary for the past year.

With that summary in hand, conduct a post-mortem to figure out why you spent what you did in each category, if you can afford to budget for the same amount in the new year, and plan for category-specific spending cuts.

All together, these tasks won’t take much more than an hour to complete, and you can sail through the end of the year feeling good about your mad financial skills.